Good morning, this Committee Meets this morning to receive testimony on recent Navy Collisions at sea, including uss lake champlain, uss fitzgerald and the uss John S Mccain, as well as the rounding of the uss antietam. We welcome our witnesses, the honorable richard spencer, secretary of the navy, admiral john richardson, chief of Naval Operations and start on an, director of defense for structure and readiness issues at the Government Accountability office. I would like to take a moment to recognize family members who lost loved ones in the fitzgerald and mccain collisions, who are here with us today as honored guests. Ofm the fitzgerald, the wife a chief petty officer, parents of a petty officer third c lass, parents and brother of a petty officer first class. Stepmother of a seaman , father of a petty officer first class, and from the mccain, the wife of a petty officer first class and his , along with her wife. Officer of a petty first class, mother and brother of a petty up with her second class. Let me express my deepest condolences to you all on behalf of this committee, the u. S. Senate and the american people. Your presence here today reminds us of our sacred obligation to look after the young people who volunteer to serve in the military. Would those individuals i named stand so we can recognize their presence here . Thank you and god bless. Nameds Thomas Mccain was John S Mccain was named after my father and grandfather. I remember the ship launching. My wife continues to serve as a ship sponsor. Believe me, these tragedies are personal for me and my family and we share in your sorrow. My commitment to all of you is that we will get to the bottom , it is simplyents unacceptable for u. S. Navy ships to run aground or collide with to have for such incidents in the span of seven months is truly alarming. This Committee Takes seriously its oversight role, we will identify shortcomings, fix them and hold people accountable. We will learn lessons from these recent tragedies of to make the may be better, and all who serve in it safer. Know our navy leaders chevys goals and will work with us to achieve them. To that end, i hope the witnesses will help us better understand what happened with regard to these incidents. We are interested in the status of investigations, common factors or trends identified, root causes and accountability measures. We would also like to know the extent and cost of damage to the ships and operational impacts of unanticipated repairs. Finally, we ask you to highlight areas in which we in congress can assist to help ensure the safety and proficiency of our sailors, including changes to current law. I am deeply concerned by mr. Pendletons written testimony, which indicates 37 , that is over one third, of the training certifications for u. S. Navy cruisers and destroyers based in june. Were expired as of as he notes, this represents more than a fivefold increase in the percentage of aches fired warfare certifications percentage of expired warfare certifications in the last five years. That is the ships ability to fully be prepared to engage in combat. Press reporting paints and even bleaker picture. The mccain had experienced expired training certification in six of the 10 key Warfare Mission areas. The fitzgerald had expired certification in all 10 mission areas. Admiraly spencer and richardson, i dont need to tell you that this is troubling and unacceptable. We acknowledge and appreciate the accountability actions of the navy has taken to date. The navy has relieved to Commanding Officers, a commander and captain, it has issued reprimands, 20 reprimands to other officers and sailors. Since august 23, the strike group and fleet commander will have been relieved for cause. I assure you, the committee will do everything we can to support the navy leaderships efforts to course correct, that we must also call you to task and demand answers as leaders of our navy. You must do better. In particular i would like to know why the recommendations to the gao and other relative related reviews were not effectively implemented and maintained. The lives of the 17 sailors lost in the fitzgerald and mccain collisions were priceless, and i mourn the loss. These preventable incidents also come with a very real price tag in terms of the cost of taxpayers. I understand the current estimate of repairs is million, but 600 the cost will also be felt in unexpected deployments for other ships to meet operational requirements. Im also concerned by the apparent difficulty of navigating safely in the western pacific. With three of these ships nondeployed will or months or years of due to damage repairs, there are serious questions about our Maritime Readiness to fight a response to north korea, chinese and russian aggression. Spitzer andcted by richardson was quickly get to the bottom of this and identify root causes, corrective actions and further accountability actions. Ime is of the essence i hope these reviews fully examine how discrete changes over the years have compounded, resulting in deprioritizing the need to do more with less. That has come at the expense of operational effectiveness. These changes include longer deployments, socalled optimal manning of ships, less handson in initial training, less time for maintenance, less time to train, and an officer personnel system governed by laws like the defense officer Personnel Management act and the Goldwater Nichols act, which were put in place more than three decades waited awhich may have preference for breath of experience over depth of technical experience. We need to look seriously and rigorously at all of these types of systemic contributing factors, and i would like your assurance, secretary spencer, thatyou will do so, and you consider additional accountability actions and look at all levels of command as appropriate. Incidentse focused on at sea today, this committee recognizes that the current readiness crisis affects all of our military services. It is part of a larger, deeper trend of forcing military units at the tactical level to try to do too much with too little. In the last three years, fatal training action training accidents have taken the lives of four times more Service Members than our enemies have in combat. This cannot continue. Unfortunately, this is an issue of command. There is plenty of blame to go around for the deteriorated state of the military, and we cannot ignore congresses responsibility. Years of budget cuts, continuing resolutions, sequestration have forced our military to operate a high tempo with limited resources. Ofknow it is, the cost training, maintenance, readiness, effectiveness and the lives of too many brave, young americans. Our service chiefs, including the chief of Naval Operations, have testified repeatedly that the budget control act and sequestration are endangering the lives of men and women in uniform. Y dear friends, we were warned to fix this problem, we must all do better. Military leaders must make honest assessments of requirements and test the full extent of what they need. In turn, we in Congress Must provide these resources in a timely and protectable way. To trulyhe only way restore the readiness of our force. It is the only solution to ensuring that actions like this do not happen again. It is the bare minimum we owe to the brave men and women who risk their lives to defend our nation. Senator reid. Senator reid i want to join senator mccain in welcoming you to the committee this morning to testify on the issues surrounding the recent accidents and the departments plans for determining what went wrong and what steps need to be taken and ensure such actions do not occur in the future. Service can be dangerous. The country is set in when we lose one of americas sons or daughters, it is to truly disturbing when young men or women are casualties in normal peacetime operations. I want to extend my condolences to the families of those who lost, i know i join on my colleagues in expressing our profound sympathy for your loss. Becannot we should not judged the outcome of the internal navy reviews, however, we know the navy has been facing serious readiness problems caused by cancel training and deployment. In addition, they have been operating at a high tempo for a long period. This is been aggravated by many years of Budget Constraints and uncertainty, which has forced leaders into making difficult decisions. All of these factors have taken a toll on the Navy Commanders and operations. Secretary spencer and admiral richardson, ask your commitment as you are giving this situation your full attention, that you will follow this investigations wherever they lead, and that you will share all findings with congress. We must do all that is necessary to provide and sustain our navy and all our armed forces. I think the witnesses and look for to testimony. secretaryain spencer. I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you to talk about the state of our navy. Before we move forward, i want to express our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones, and the crews that have lost one of their own in the last few months. The eyes ofd into many of these families and shared time with them, knowing their loved ones return home in a flag brick casket, i know my words are insufficient. Please know that holly and i have you in our thoughts and prayers. The 17 sailors from the uss fitzgerald and john is mccain were sons, husbands, fiances, uncles and friends. They were patriots and will not be forgotten. We pledge our full support to their families and crews. We will back our words with actions. Navyve a problem in the and were going to fix it. In addition to the investigations already initiated, we are conducting to thorough reviews, the sea and cnos review, and a Strategic Review comprised of military and Industry Experts looking at root causes, accountability, longterm systemic issues and then provide remedial insight. These reviews will consummate and enhance each other, providing the depth the situation demands. Have received and reviewed the recommendations from our teams, i will act to the limits of my authority to change processes and acquire any needed capabilities in order to protect our people. Im here today to impress our sense of urgency and highlight a way forward to renew a culture of safety and training across the fleet. We will take Lessons Learned from the recent tragic events and come out the other side as a struggle, more capable at a stronger, more capable team. We are not waiting 60 days or 90 days to make adjustments. The we will take Lessons Learned from the recent tragic events and come out the other side a stronger, more capable Navy Marine Corps team. We are not waiting 60 days or 90 days to make adjustments. The cn oh addresses the actions the fleet is taking to address the situation in ranging from ship to ship material inspections to the activation of ais radar identifications trafficking specific areas. We are not lying idle and i can tell you we are committed. I appreciate the opportunity to work with you on Remedial Solutions and find a way forward. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Admiral richardson. Distinguished members of the committee, i thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the recent u. S. Navy incidents at sea. To begin with i want to express my deep condolences to families of the 17 sailors who served with honor and distinction and lost their lives, the tragic incident, sailors acted heroically to save their ships as they combated flooding and loss of critical systems. The families of our sailors is the top priority, we will learn everything we can from these tragic events to prevent another accident. Many family members are here today and we will always stand with you. What we do is inherently dangerous. Leadership responsibility is to ensure we provide the right training and oversight to keep our team safe and effective. We are taking immediate corrective actions to ensure we meet the readiness standard to prevent another mishap. We are not stopping with immediate actions. In addition to the investigation and specific incidents on fitzgerald and mccain we are conducting a comprehensive review which will turn over every stone to examine for more systemic problems. This will complement the secretarys Strategic Review. The corrosive confluence of high operational tempo, inadequate budgets and budget uncertainty. The funding approved in fiscal year 17 is used to plug our most urgent readiness hold on the fleet with 18 requests sustained with the progress. We have prioritized maintenance and readiness dollars, full recovery will not happen overnight. It will take years with stable and adequate resources but make no mistake, these factors do exert negative force on the challenges we face, at the core this is about leadership, especially command. Our first dollar, first molecule of effort, our first team must go to safety, safety is first and no matter what the situation those charged with command must achieve and maintain a standard resource teams are trained and ready to safely and effectively conduct assigned operations. We must remain vigilant meeting the standard fighting every pressure to the road it. Commanders must meet the absolute standard for safe and effective teams. If we cannot meet the standard we do not deploy until we do. We must establish a climate that promotes honest reporting. These incidents demand our full attention. We must provide our sailors the necessary resources and training to execute their assigned missions. Im accountable for safe and effective operations of the navy and we will fix this. I own this problem. Im confident the navy will identify root causes and direct them and they will be better in the end. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Chairman mccain, thank you for having me here today, for navy readiness. I dont know what caused the recent accidents. This is between unrelenting operational demand and limited supply shifts. I am skeptical the navy will make significant readiness games unless the demands are decreased. Even with increased funding Going Forward, my assessment agreed with navy it will take several years to rebuild training and maintenance. Foundations of readiness that have become shaky over time, Significant Management issues the navy must confront, ships based in japan have aggressive deployment schedules that do not have dedicated Training Programs like the United States did. The overseas ships, overseas base ships were so busy they had to train on margins. That was explained to me that it meant they had to squeeze in training when they could. The seventh fleet, it was ready, the navy has realized this conventional wisdom is faulty. In 2015 the navy revised deployment schedules, dedicated training time, will assess the risk, with increased reliant facing the ships. Dod and the navy agreed at least on paper but have taken little action, and more broad management challenges we must address like ship manning. An internal study found sailors work 100 hours a week in 2014. This was unsustainable and contributing to a poor safety culture. We recommended in brief the navy assess the work it takes to run a ship and use that. Maintenance is taking longer and costing more. Ship deployment have been extended causing ships to have more problems when brought in for maintenance, shipyard struggled to keep pace for a number of reasons. Over the past few years the lost operational days created by the maintenance overruns cost the navy the equivalent of the presence of three surface ships per year which strains the remaining fleet and it is an unsustainable cycle. As you know the navy is not alone in its Readiness Challenges which is why we recommended, this committee supported, thank you, the need for the development of departmentwide readiness rebuilding plan that explicitly balances resources with demands and is transparent how long it will take to rebuild readiness and what it will cost. I suggest you continue to insist the department applied to that plan. Over the past three years gao has made 14 recommendations to the department of defense to guide the navy and services for improved readiness. As the navy and dod developer roadmap Going Forward. I hope they consider recommendations to guide them. Thanks for having me here today. I appreciate it, your testimony, thank you for the important work you do which is incredibly important to this committee. Secretary spencer and admiral richardson, readiness has degraded in the last we 10 years. Surface chain of command has become complicated on the waterfront, and accountability, the growing backlog of off ship require requirements and deep Maintenance Requirements that was not identified or resourced. The effort to derive efficiency is overtaken the culture of effectiveness, and the Surface Force is well below acceptable levels to support reliable sustained operations for their fullservice life expectancy. Ships home ported overseas have limited training and maintenance which resulted in difficulty keeping crews trained and some have had success in deferred maintenance resulting in longterm material condition. And comprehensive risk for ships home ported overseas, important for the navy to identify mitigated risks. I could go on. Do you agree these statements ring true today. And i agree with you. And from 2010. And no navy leaders four years. Much more to be done. These observations point, come in the work of Mister Pendleton and gao as well. There has been an effort to address those observations. We have not been sitting idle. It has been insufficient to close the readiness and effectiveness gap, we have been making steady investments to respond to indications we got in training and manpower and maintenance and wi